psychological theories

fundamental assumptions of psychological theories of crime causation

1. individual is primary unit of analysis
2. personality is major motivational element
3. crime results from abnormal, dysfunctional, or inappropriate mental processes within personality
4. behaviour can be judged inappropriate only when measured against external criteria purporting to establish normality
5. what majority of people in any group agree is real
6. defective, or abnormal, mental processes may have a variety of causes

forensic psychiatry

psychoanalytic perspective

-freud coined the term psychoanalysis in 1896
-from point of psychoanalysis: criminal behaviour is maladaptive or product of inadequacies inherent in the offender's personality
-psychotherapy: attempt to relieve patients of their mental disorders through application of psychoanalytical principes and techniques
-personality is made up of 3 components:
1) id 2) ego 3) superego

abnormality in the function of right anterior superior temporal gyrus in psychopathy

antisocial personality disorder

antisocial personality

-selfish, callous, irresponsible, impulsive, unable to feel guilt or lean from experience and punishment
-tend to blame others or offer plausible rationalization for their behaviour
-have a good chance of running afoul of the law like psychopath
-causes of ASPD are unclear

autoplastic adaptation

Gabriel Tarde: basis of any society was imitation
- three laws of imitation and suggestion

1. individuals in close intimate contact with one another tend to imitate each other's behaviour
2. imitation moves from the top down
eg) poor ppl tend to imitate wealth ppl
3. law of insertion: new acts and behaviour tend to either reinforce or replace old ones

reduction of aversive treatment

disengagement

result from 1. attributing blame to one's victims
2.dehumanization through bureaucratization, automation, urbanization, and high social mobility
3. vindication of aggressive practices by legitimate authorities
4. desensitization resulting from repeated exposure to aggression in any of a variety of froms

modelling theory has been criticized for lacking comprehensive explanatory power

behaviour theory

sometimes called stimulus response to human behaviour
-individual behaviour that is rewarded will increase its frequency, while that which is punished will decrease
-often employed through a series of rewards and punishments
-B.F. Skinner

operant behaviour

behavioural choices effectively operate upon the surrounding env't to produce consequences for the behaving individual
-stimuli provided by the env't become behavioral cues that serve to elicit conditioned responses from individuals

Bill C-30 passed by parliament in 1992

a person found NCRMD must attend a disposition hearing, be referred to a provincial review board made up of lawyers, psychiatrists, and other appointees
-replaces the former practice of indefinite hospitalization with a system of caps or max periods of deprivation of liberty

roughly one quarter of US states adopted guilty but mental ill (GMBI) standard
GMBI VERDICT MEANS

selective incapacitation

a policy based on notion of career criminality
-seeks to protect society by incarcerating those individuals deemed to be the most dangerous
-strategy depends on accuratel identifying potentially dangerous offenders out of existing criminal populations

most commonly used classification instrument in correctional facilities

based on results of MMPI, offenders assigned to various security levels, differing correctional programs or variety of treatment programs

In the book, psychology of criminal conduct, Andrews and Bonta asks for the objective application of what is now understood about the psychology of crime and criminal behaviour

-conclude that treatment reduces recidivism
-targeting higher risk cases and using treatments outside of formal correctional settings that extend to an offender's family are the most effective treatment strategies

psychological profiling

used to assist criminal investigators seeking to better understand individuals wanted for serious offences
-devpt of a list of typical offender characteristics and other useful principles by analyzing crime scene data in conjunction with interviews and other studies of past offenders
-based on the belief that almost any form of conscious behaviour is symptomatic of an individual's personality

organized non-social vs. disorganized asocial types

former: exhibiting complete indifference to interests of society and being completely self-centered
"methodical and cunning"
latter: societal aversion/prefers his own company to that of others, typified as a loner/experiences difficulty in negotiating interpersonal relationships and consequently feels rejected and lonely
-crime likely to be committed in close proximity to his residence or work place where he feels most scure and ease

Through the work of Inspector Ron MacKay of Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Sergeant Greg Johnston of ONtario Provincial Police (OPP), Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS) was introduced in 1995.

ViCLAS

centralized computer bank containing details of violent crime, allowing police to recognize patters among violent offences
-serving to facilitate communication between investigators with the common goal of solving serial criminal acts and protecting the public from dangerous repeat offenders